Local Runners Praise Boston Marathon

It's the first marathon since last year's bomb attack that killed three people, injured more than 260 and forced officials to stop thousands of runners just before they could reach the finish line.

Several people from our region participated in this year's marathon. The largest group of about 30 runners are from State College.

WTAJ has nearly 50 runners from our region participating in the Boston Marathon. People we caught up with Monday said they noticed some changes.

Mary Kowalski, of Hollidaysburg, can hardly put it into words.

"I feel like it's an accomplishment for everyone. It's just positive and it's infectious, people were smiling," she said. "It was unbelievable. You would have never known something bad happened last year."

Kowalski finished the marathon Monday afternoon, with a time of 4:09. She said the pain and loss from last year's race helped her push through.

"The energy of the people, the volunteers, the city of Boston, just totally embraced the runners," she said.

"The crowds were a lot bigger, a lot louder than last year," Ethan Imhoff, of Hollidaysburg, said.

This was Imhoff's second year running Boston, his first was last year.

"Boston is known for its excellent and very supportive crowd, but this year was so much more than I experienced last year," he said. "People were really, really fired up."

He thought increased security would keep the crowd away, but said that wasn't the case.

"You could see there was a lot more police personnel out along the course, but it wasn't overbearing," he said. "They did it in a way that they tried to make the impact as minimal as possible, while keeping people safe. It really didn't alter the nature of the event."

An event full of emotion and enthusiasm.

"You'd be running down the street and just waving your arms, you'd hear the roar of the crowds, it was really tremendous," Imhoff said.